Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain (Traditional Lao myth)
"Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain" is a traditional Lao myth originating from the former royal city of Luang Prabang. The tale centers around a poor woodcutter and his wife who abandon their twelve daughters in the forest, leading to their capture by an ogress. The story unfolds as the sisters eventually escape, marry a king, and face dire challenges imposed by the ogress, who seeks to reclaim control over them. The narrative highlights themes of sacrifice, filial duty, and the complexities of love.
The protagonist, Prince Phutthasen, emerges as a devoted son who risks his life to care for his mother and aunts, ultimately confronting the ogress to restore their sight and avenge their suffering. The myth concludes with Phutthasen and the princess, Kang Hi, transforming into the mountains that bear their names. This legend illustrates the cultural integration of local beliefs and Buddhist moral teachings, reflecting the values of loyalty and familial obligation. The story has been preserved and adapted through oral tradition and written texts, contributing to the rich tapestry of Lao folklore.
Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain (Traditional Lao myth)
Author: Traditional
Time Period: 1001 CE–1500 CE
Country or Culture: Laos
Genre: Legend
PLOT SUMMARY
In ancient times, a poor woodcutter and his wife abandon their twelve daughters in the forest because they cannot provide for them. An ogress finds the twelve girls and takes them home. There, she raises them together with her own daughter, Kang Hi.
When grown up, the young women escape from the ogress and reach a city. There, the king falls in love with them. He marries all twelve of them. When the ogress hears this, she becomes furious. She changes herself into a beautiful woman and approaches the king. He makes her his queen.
The ogress starves herself, and the king worries for her life. She changes herself into an astrologer and tells the king that the twelve sisters are the source of the queen’s illness. To save her, she tells the king that he must take out the eyes of the twelve sisters as a sacrifice and send them away. The king complies with this advice. The ogress sends the eyes to her daughter, and the sisters are locked up in a cave.
The twelve sisters are all pregnant. One by one, they each give birth to a child. Out of starvation, eleven of them eat each baby as it is born. Only the twelfth sister, who has retained one eye, refuses to eat this meat. Her son is the only child who survives. Eventually, they all are fed grains of rice by a wild rooster.
When the boy grows up, he visits the city. There, the king recognizes him as his son. He names him Prince Phutthasen and keeps him in his palace. In secret, Phutthasen brings food to his mother and aunts in the cave every day.
The ogress discovers Prince Phutthasen’s identity and decides to kill him. She tells the king that the only cure for her new illness is at her home with her daughter and that Phutthasen should fetch it. The king agrees, and Phutthasen is given a flying horse for the journey. The ogress also gives him a letter to her daughter. In this letter, she asks her daughter to kill Phutthasen.
While Phutthasen rests on his journey, a hermit discovers the letter, reads it, and changes its wording. It now announces the prince as husband for Kang Hi. When Kang Hi reads the letter from Phutthasen, she is happy. She shows him her palace, the eyes of his mother and aunts, and the heart of the ogress, among other magic things. Phutthasen organizes a banquet, makes everybody else fall into a drunken sleep, and escapes with the eyes, the ogress’s heart, and the magic things. Kang Hi awakes and pursues him. He stops her first with a bamboo forest, then an impassable magic river. Giving up, Kang Hi curses the prince: “May you die for love, just as I have done” (Nattavong 127). Returning home, she dies of a broken heart.
Phutthasen returns the eyes to the twelve sisters and restores their sight with a drop of magic lemon juice. When the ogress sees Phutthasen return to the palace, she changes into her true form and tries to kill him. Phutthasen pierces her heart with his sword, killing her instantly. He takes his leave from his elders and returns to his wife.
Finding Kang Hi dead, he falls face down and dies with his head at her feet. Seeing this, the deities feel this offends the cosmic order: if women heard this story, they would never trust men again. So, they rearrange the prince’s body so that he lies on his back, implicitly putting his feet at Kang Hi’s head. In this position, the legend concludes, the prince and the princess have become Phu Phra, Prince Mountain, and Phu Nang, Princess Mountain.
SIGNIFICANCE
“Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain” is a legend from the former royal city of Luang Prabang in Laos, a country in Southeast Asia. It explains the legendary origin of two mountains facing Luang Prabang across the Mekong River. These are called indeed Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain (Phu Phra and Phu Nang).
The original composers of the legend used material from the Jataka tales to tell this story. The Jataka are moral tales that relate episodes from Buddha’s previous incarnations. When Buddhism reached Southeast Asia, local people added their own apocryphal stories to the canonical, originally Indian Jataka tales. Buddhism entered Laos around the seventh and eighth centuries CE, and it flourished as the state religion of the first Lao kingdom, founded in 1353 CE. From that time until 1560, Luang Prabang was the capital. The legend of Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain is likely to have originated during the cultural heyday of the city. The tale has been recorded, transcribed, and translated into English by Lao scholar Samrit Buasisavath. It was published as “Phu Phra and Phu Nang” in 1992. A second, more widely available English text of the tale can be found in the 2008 anthology Lao Folktales. However, this version cuts out the most horrific detail of the legend, the filicidal cannibalism of eleven of the sisters. Apart from this expurgation, the tale follows the traditional version.
As Buddhist moral tale, “Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain” strongly emphasizes filial duty. Prince Phutthasen devotedly cares for his elders, his mother and his aunts, bringing them food at the risk of being punished. It is interesting that in doing so, he must defy his father. Yet he obeys the father in traveling to Kang Hi’s place. There, the prince places filial duty to his mother above his marital happiness. Only when he has avenged his mother and his aunts does he return to his wife. The deities reward him for this. Rather than being left dead prostrating himself at the feet of his wife, the prince regally lies on his back.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Buasisavath, Samrit. “Phu Phra and Phu Nang.” The Great Gourd of Heaven: A Selection of the Folk-Tales and Stories of Laos. Ed. Roisin O. Boyle and Thavisack Phanmatanh. Vientiane: Vannasin Magazine, 1992. 9–17. Print.
Heywood, Denise. Ancient Luang Prabang. Bangkok: River, 2006. Print.
Koret, Peter. “Books in Search: Convention and Creativity in Traditional Lao Literature.” The Canon in Southeast Asian Literature. Ed. David Smyth. Richmond: Curzon, 2000. 210–33. Print.
Nattavong, Kongdeuane. “Phu Pha Phu Nang: Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain.” Trans. Wajuppa Tossa. Lao Folktales. Ed. Margaret Read MacDonald. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2008. 125–27. Print.
Tossa, Wajuppa, comp. “Phu Phra Phu Nang (Prince Mountain and Princess Mountain).” Lao Folk Literature Course. Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois U, 2002. Web. 26 June 2013.